I’ve never heard of this in the USA. But a similar situation might exist where commercial entities construct buildings to run concessions in State or National parks. I know they don’t own the land, but I’m not sure who might own the building.
My small hometown has something like that. Ever since I was a kid, I’ve heard my father gripe about the fact that he won’t technically own his land until 2049, when he’ll almost definitely be dead.
Lucky US car owners.
I don’t know the gasoline tax in Minnesota but the average state gas tax across the US seems to be about 22 cents per US gallon. Add to that your federal gasoline tax of 18.4 cents per US gallon and you pay a total of roughly 40 cents.
Petrol here costs £4.54 per Imperial gallon on average, the tax element of which is £2.44*. This equates to a cost £3.78 per US gallon and a tax of £2.03 per US gallon.
Therefore, at current exchange rates, you pay 40 cents and we pay $4.26 per US gallon.
Some people say this means taxpayers in general, including those who don’t own or operate cars, are subsidised by car owners.
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- Conventional unleaded petrol
Then why did you say this?
So what? Does your state constitution require that ALL personal property be taxed? Would you feel better if there were taxes on every single thing that you own? No offense, but you’re making an absolutely lame point.
The state defines selected items as “personal property” for taxation purposes. You just need to accept that they use the phrase to mean taxable personal property, not all personal property.
Yes it is and no you don’t. Not every road is a toll road. Not sure how it is in your state, but in mine the auto registration money gets apportioned to the state and its local agencies for road maintenance and repairs. Maybe a lot of your freeway driving is on a toll road, but you can’t tell us that you never drive on a non-toll road. The money to maintain these roads has to come from somewhere.
Wow, I thought surely that you must have really low everything-else taxes. But holy cow, 6.45% income tax! I’ve not scoured all of the normal deductions, but jeesh, that’s high. How about sales tax: 5.3%, which is respectable, but charged on food! Plus it looks like communities can impose their own little taxes atop that! How about real property taxes: I quick check at a random online calculator for a random burg looked reasonable in my eyes.
How are businesses taxed?
We are also are the world. And the children.
I’m with the OP, it really sucks that we have to pay this damn tax every year on cars we have already paid for.
In Virginia we did have a governor (Gilmore) that in 1998 reduced the car tax state-wide. It’s still in effect even though he was 2 governors ago. I think it’s getting gradually going back to higher levels.
We are also confused. Taxes, and the distribution of their pain, are seldom a matter of “justification” or “why.” Our governments need x number of cubic yards of money to get things done. The deciding is done by elected folks, and their main concern is “Who can I tag with a tax, without losing my job?”
This time, it’s you, the one with a year-old car. If you keep your car long enough, that tax will fall off to nearly nothing. If you don’t want to pay it, buy an older car.
If you are angry enough, you are free to vote for somebody else. Somebody who will tax the bastards who beat you at golf, and the jerks ahead of you in line at the grocery store. Yeah, and tax the bums upwind of you, with all the dandelions, and the stuck up ones who wouldn’t date you in high school. Yeah, tax those (Oedipal word)s! :rolleyes:
And the champions.
Frankly, it just came as a complete shock to me. Despite what my location says, I moved over to the Missouri side and honestly wasn’t expecting anything like this bill. AFAIK, there’s no tax like this on the Kansas side. So for the government to send me a completely unexpected bill saying that, on top of registration costs, I now owe them $500 extra, it just blew me away. That’s two full car payments for me. It’s sales tax amount on my car, every single year, despite the fact that there’s no sale to be had. The commerce is over. It doesn’t belong to them!
Bleh, maybe I’m just ranting at this point.
Yeah, I tried that. Must not’ve held my mouth right or something.
the last generation
We are the ones they left behind :eek:
Si
What a horrible crock that “personal property tax” sounds like.
I’d burn down the fucking Capitol building in Austin if those jerks in the Legislature tried that BS around here.
I think you were ranting from the start. 
But, it is an understandable rant.
Your problem, in part, is your persistence in seeing this as some sort of double taxation on the “sale” of the car. It is not. It’s no different than taxing you some portion of the value of your real property (land and house); after all, that was only purchased once, too. Why should you have to pay 2% of the value of the property every year to the government? Well, because it’s property, which governments have been taxing for hundreds of years. Including personal property; at one time, you would have the tax collector estimate the value of everything you owned and you would have to pay a percentage of that in tax. This is simply a remnant of that system.
But it angers a lot of people, especially when governments try to milk money from it. Governor Ahnohd is in the statehouse in Sacramento primarily because Gray Davis, IIRC, engineered a significant increase in the taxes and fees paid on yearly registration of cars in California. The peeps, they did get angry, Lawd!
I’m sure they get taxes from you somehow. What other kinds of taxes/fees does your state/county have other than income and sales taxes?
I’m really not getting this. Are you saying that every person in the US gets taxed on his/her car every year?
If you have more than one car do you get taxed on each?
If so then it’s not much different to the “Tax Disc” we Brits have to pay for…every year 
I think your tax disc is what we merkins would refer to as our registration or plate renewal, generally a small amount (like under $50).
The OP’s talking about a property tax on the value of his car, which sounds like it’s several hundred dollars. And no, not every American pays this. My state has no such thing, I came into this thread thinking it was a question about registration fees.
I thought much long leasehold land in the UK was owned by the nobility - the last vestige of the feudal idea that only the nobility and not the peasants should ever have any absolute right to the land they live on.
All (I would hazard a guess) Americans will pay a nominal (say $50 or so) fee yearly for the privilege of being able to drive their car on the roads of America. In the past, many states would issue you a new license “plate” for this fee; now you usually keep on plate and affix a sticker to it yearly, showing you are up to date.
Some states tax your car’s value at the same time. They have a pre-established depreciation schedule, which works as a percentage of the value over time. Since they know what you paid originally for the car (you have to report that when you first register it), they can calculate on a yearly basis their estimate of its current worth. Then they add the appropriate tax on that value to the fees you have to pay to register the car. This will often mean a sum of money equalling $500 or more (!), gradually tapering off to a sum that is insignificant if you keep the car long enough. California does this (I lived there until I was 38), but Ohio (where I live now), does not.
Apparently Kansas doesn’t, but Missouri does, to the everlasting disgust of Enderw24.